Learning and belonging
Being a student today sometimes feels like being a student forever. In a time when having a Masters is hardly much of an asset, when countless startups and initiatives struggle to find space in a market over-populated with self-proclaimed solutions, and when education is commonly and superficially branded as a path to employability, it is nothing short of impressive how (formal) education is commodified. Put in practical terms, every $30,000 year seems to lead to the next $30,000 year.
Since early 2014, I took on a journey to discover different ways education could take shape. Throughout this summer, I had the opportunity to work on HaloHalo¹, a project created by a team of 6 internationals that we are now launching in the Netherlands. By leveraging the universal appeal of learning, we aim to connect people through the skills and passions sourced in the community they are already part of.
In short, HaloHalo catalyzes encounters between refugees and member of their host communities through learning exchanges that are meaningful for both groups. We create in-person interactions that allow both refugees and locals to meet, develop new skills, reconnect with their passions, and ultimately to broaden their personal and professional network.
Personally, I see HaloHalo as another instance of a new vision for education. In the formal system, the struggle to increase accessibility has resulted in more people learning more things than ever before. However, the intention underlying education is ever-more individualistic and utilitarian, making it seem like another worldwide competition for the survival of the fittest.
On the other hand, HaloHalo represents a vision of education in which cooperation rules over competition, learning is never detached from real life, the roles of teachers and learners become fluid, and a vision in which there is never a wall separating the places where you are supposed to learn and those where you are not.
Education as an ecosystem of learning
Fortunately, many current trends in education represent a coupling of scale with features of this vision. In its forecast “The Future of Learning: Education in the Era of Partners of Code²,” KnowledgeWorks presents an array of possibilities around what the future of education may look like. Label-free learning, self-improving learning ecosystems, designing for flow and many other identified trends represent a resignification of what education has traditionally meant.
At the same time, Madhu Singh argues, in a paper commissioned by UNESCO, that social inequality, while directly related with the opportunity gap and one’s access to the formal education system, presents as one of its main consequences “a major under-utilisation of existing human potential, talents and human resources, which people may have acquired in non-formal and informal learning settings.”
One of the most remarkable tendencies is that our education systems are gradually realizing that they do not need to lose the personal to attain the universal. When all the labels given to education (formal, informal, personalized, etc.) that make it feel so objectified start to blend together, learners may recover the fundamental subjectivity of intellectual growth. By dissolving the “formal” in education and breaking up the artificiality of such the formal/informal dichotomy, learning regains its universal appeal.
Lest we see education in pure utilitarian ways, let us remember how dignifying and exasperating it might be to discover something for its own sake. HaloHalo leverages this by making it a collective exercise: to create an ecosystem of learning, respect, and friendship, built around mutual dignity. Learning, as an exercise of passion, reminds us of our own self-worth and, as a practice of community, gives rise an indelible sense of belonging.
Special thanks Andrew Rikard for providing valuable feedback to this piece. If you like it, consider following me on Medium to receive my next piece, probably on diversity and moral development.
¹ Our official website is a work in progress. Meanwhile, you might enjoy checking this Instagram account. It was created by participants in our last workshop in a storytelling through Instagram session. Also, feel free to reach out to have a conversation :)
² Access the forecast here. KnowledgeWorks is a social enterprise that, through our portfolio of school and community approaches, provides innovative tools, training and assistance to school leaders, teachers and community stakeholders.
³ Singh, M. (2015). Global Perspectives on Recognising Non-formal and Informal Learning, accessible here.
